Page 7 of Lord Hartwell’s Refuge

The Star Inn was quiet at this morning hour, which was precisely why Roman liked it. The low beams, the scent of good coffee and wood smoke, the unhurried pace of men who had nowhere pressing to be—it suited him when he needed to think without being interrupted. His usual table near the window overlooked the small courtyard and pump, and the proprietor had long since learned not to hover.

He was early. He had left Hartwell House twenty minutes before necessary because the notebook on his desk had begun to feel like an accusation.

He set it on the table now and opened it to the page causing him the most trouble. A page with a list.

The list.

The list written in his own hand, neat and deliberate, which made it worse somehow. His mind was at war against him to support the ongoing battle of duty and disappointment.

Qualities essential in a baroness:

Socially competent.

Accustomed to or capable of learning the management of a large household.

Even temperament.

Not given to extravagance.

Capable of independent judgment.

Presentable.

Willing.

He studied it for a moment.

Willing was perhaps not his finest hour as a diarist.

He had added a second column late last night, which he regretted in the morning light:

Qualities desirable but not essential:

Intelligent conversation.

Genuine interest in York and its concerns.

Some warmth of character.

He had stopped there because he had started to write ‘Genuinely fond’ and rubbed it out. Then he’d gone to bed, trying not to think of the absurdity of making a shopping list for a future wife. He’d amused himself by wondering what his dogs might have done, had they the ability to understand what their master was doing, the silent witnesses to his list-making.

Apollo would not have judged him for it, given the dog’s unending loyalty. Athena would have simply sighed and put her head on his knee with sympathy, which was worse.

In the inn this morning, Roman closed the notebook.

One table over, a young gentleman was doing a poor impression of a man who was perfectly fine. He sat alone at a table with a cup he hadn’t touched, staring at the window in focused misery. Roman hadn’t seen the fellow before. He looked more in need of a stiff drink than a coffee. The man was tall, dark-haired, well-dressed, not in any distress exactly. Just thoroughly, specifically unhappy in the only way that produced such pain in a man of his age.

Roman recognized it because he had felt a version of it himself, three times now, and had managed each time to be considerably less obvious about it.

The young man exhaled sharply at nothing, caught Roman’s eye by accident, and straightened immediately.

“Your pardon,” he said, though it seemed no more than a reflex of good breeding. “I did not mean to—” He gestured vaguely at his own expression, as though he could explain it away. Then the window. “I was looking out, sir. Not at you.”

“No need for an apology,” Roman said. “The window is not mine to claim.”

The young man’s gaze drifted back to the nothingness of the view outside, then returned to Roman. “Do you find,” he said, with the air of someone who had been arguing with himself for some time, “that women of good family have an unusual talent for being in Scotland when they are most needed elsewhere?”

Roman considered this, wondering whether to even deign to respond to the absurd question. “I have not found it to be a pattern, no.” The women of good family he had known were simply engaged elsewhere.